With my academics deteriorating throughout the 2023-24 academic year, it almost always felt like I was crumbling into pieces. Worsening grades, financial uncertainties and the need to run around the Stanford bureaucracy in a panic to ‘manage’ it all sent me into a dark place. I got so scared about what the next steps would look like that I panicked about whether or not those next steps would ever happen at all.

I felt a cold, heart-wrenching darkness consuming me more and more by the day. As my stresses and loneliness ripped my bandwidth and joy to shreds, I grew more distant and lost sight of everything that was important to me. As the one-year anniversary of when I left campus (April 15) approaches, I have found myself becoming more appreciative of one of the groups that, in hindsight, made one of the biggest differences in me getting through each of those dreaded pre-academic suspension days: Stanford Chabad.

I am not Jewish, so there is so much that I could never truly understand about what the Jewish people endured not just on Oct. 7 but also in every other instance of profound hatred, ignorance and violence throughout their long history. This lack of understanding led me to doubt whether or not I was ‘fit’ to attend Shabbat dinners at Chabad, despite numerous invitations, or even publicly condemn antisemitism in the first place. I attended anyway because the few Chabad-affiliated Jewish people I knew were also some of the most selfless people I knew. They gave me the kindness that I, amidst great academic and financial crises, refused to give myself. 

The warmth, hospitality, laughter and learning that I experienced every time I came to Shabbat at Chabad was nothing short of a miracle. What was once doubt of my place in everything and concern over my immense ignorance became, over time, a forever-growing love for the Jewish people and an insatiable desire to learn as much as I could. 

From the physics-neuroscience-artificial intelligence Ph.D. student who first invited me to Chabad to the student who I frequently saw in the hall outside one of my classes in Huang, I got to know people I never would have met without those Shabbat dinners. A Shabbat that, to this day, still stands out to me is the one during Purim, or the Jewish holiday that celebrates the foiling of a plot to slaughter the Jews of Persia. I remember Rabbi Dov speaking with a great aura and eloquence that I, as a non-Jew, could still feel in some way. It was an uplifting feeling. I felt these ‘The better days are still ahead’ types of feelings where, as I learned about a celebration of Jewish survival and joy, I gained a deeper perspective on what Judaism is and what it’s been through. 

It was as if my soul grew three sizes with every Shabbat I came to. With the learning came deeper happiness. I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone, which is what made my time in Chabad one of the most ‘human’ parts of my entire Stanford experience. Outside of Chabad, my slipping academics made me feel more inadequate by the day and the realization that I wouldn’t graduate with the Class of 2024 gave me the worst sense of loneliness I’ve ever felt in my life. From the wonderful food to the even more wonderful words of wisdom from Rabbi Dov, I always felt like I was welcome in that space. As much as I could experience as a non-Jew, I finally felt a sense of ‘belonging’ from somewhere. 

With that belonging came a vibrant awareness of how caring for others isn’t just words and sentiments — but also action. I am proud of how, having met the people from Chabad that I did, I publicly practiced my allyship by helping to assemble an empty Shabbat table that honored Israeli hostages and standing against the Jew-hating mob that, following an anti-semitism panel on campus, yelled at Jews to “Go back to Europe!” I was never amongst the mainstream of opinions held by the people I knew, but it didn’t matter at that point. Shabbat after Shabbat, I truly internalized how I could best live my life: showing great love for those that aren’t exactly like me but, at the end of the day, still have the same human desires for love and for joy that I do.

Regardless of what the next chapters of my academic suspension journey look like, I will forever look back on my time with Chabad with profound gratitude. My only hope is that I write my story with even a fraction of the love and humanity that is so deeply baked into the Jewish story I was able to engage with.